Catherine Filloux

Catherine Filloux is an award-winning French Algerian American playwright and librettist and activist. Filloux's plays have confronted the issue of human rights in many nations. She is of French Algerian descent. She lives in New York City, New York.
Biography
Catherine Filloux's mother is from Oran, Algeria and her father from Guéret, France. Of her parents, Filloux says, "My father was born in the center of France, and he became an adventurer," who sailed from France to New York in a catamaran. "My mother loved literature" and wrote poetry in both French and English. As a child, Filloux grew up with her parents and four siblings in San Diego. She says, "We grew up... in this kind of schism of Algeria, France, and San Diego. So it made for a background of not really knowing where one belongs..."
Filloux received her MFA in dramatic writing from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University (NYU) and her French baccalaureate in philosophy with honors in Toulon, France.
CATHERINE FILLOUX is an award-winning French Algerian American playwright and librettist who has been writing about human rights for many decades. Filloux’s new play “How to Eat an Orange” was commissioned by INTAR and has its premiere in 2024 at La MaMa in New York City. Her new musical “Welcome to the Big Dipper” (composer Jimmy Roberts, “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change”) premieres Off-Broadway in 2024 at the York Theatre in New York City; it is a National Alliance for Musical Theatre finalist and received a workshop at the Redhouse Arts Center in Syracuse, NY (Hunter Foster, AD). Her new play “White Savior” is nominated for The Venturous Play List. Catherine’s plays have been produced around the U.S. and internationally including: her livestream web drama “turning your body into a compass” at CultureHub, NYC; “whatdoesfreemean?” at Nora’s Playhouse, NYC; “Kidnap Road”, La MaMa, NYC; “Selma ‘65”, NYC and U.S. tour; “Luz”, La MaMa and Looking for Lilith in Louisville, KY. “Dog and Wolf” (59E59 Theaters/Watson Arts, NYC and “Dog and Wolf” Community Outreach Project.); “Killing the Boss” (Cherry Lane Theatre, NYC); “Lemkin’s House” (Rideau de Bruxelles, Belgium; McGinn-Cazale Theatre & 78th Street Theatre Lab, NYC; Kamerni teatar 55, Sarajevo, Bosnia); “The Beauty Inside” (New Georges, NYC and InterAct, Philadelphia; also translated into Arabic for a workshop at ISADAC in Rabat, Morocco; and produced in Iraq, in Kurdish by ArtRole.) “Eyes of the Heart” (National Asian American Theatre Co., NYC); “Silence of God” (Contemporary American Theater Festival [CATF], WV); “Mary and Myra” (CATF and Todd Mountain Theater, NY); “Arthur’s War” (commissioned by Theatreworks/ USA, NYC); “Photographs From S-21”, a short play produced throughout the world; “Escuela del Mundo” (commissioned by The Ohio State University, Columbus and Ohio tour.)
Filloux is the librettist for four produced operas: “New Arrivals” (Houston Grand Opera, composer John Glover); “Where Elephants Weep” (Chenla Theatre, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, composer Him Sophy) broadcast on Cambodian national television and Broadway on Demand; “The Floating Box” (Asia Society, NYC, composer Jason Kao Hwang) an Opera News Critic’s Choice and released by New World Records. Catherine is co-librettist with composer Olga Neuwirth for the opera “Orlando”, premiere at the Vienna State Opera and the 2022 Grawemeyer Award winner. “Orlando” is the first opera by a woman composer and woman librettist in the history of the Vienna Staatsoper. Filloux is the librettist for the new operas “Blued Trees” (eco-artist/producer Aviva Rahmani; composer Julia Schwartz) and Thresh’s “L’Orient” (composer Kamala Sankaram; choreographer Preeti Vasudevan.)
Catherine has traveled for her plays to countries including Bosnia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Haiti, Iraq, Morocco; and to Sudan and South Sudan on an overseas reading tour with the University of Iowa's International Writing Program; Filloux was invited to Belfast, Northern Ireland for the Henry Smith Artist in Residence Programme with The Derry Playhouse. She served as a Juror for Sarajevo’s MES International Theater Festival and developed the Oral History Project “A Circle of Grace” with the Cambodian Women's Group at St. Rita’s Refugee Center in Bronx, NY. Her plays have been widely anthologized and written about. Filloux was Playwright Facilitator for the International Playwright Retreat at La MaMa Umbria in Italy and is a Fulbright Senior Specialist. She received her French Baccalaureate in Philosophy with Honors in Toulon, France, and her M.F.A. at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing, NYC. Catherine is featured in the documentary film “Acting Together on the World Stage" and is the co-founder/co-director of Theatre Without Borders. Catherine is the facilitator for the Lamp Lifeboat Ladder writing group, a long-term mentor to Bennington Fieldwork Term students and other mentees. She is a frequent guest on podcasts about art and activism. www.catherinefilloux.com
Career
Filloux's plays have confronted the issue of human rights in many nations. She was first drawn to the subject upon reading of the psychosomatic blindness suffered by a group of Cambodian women after witnessing the massacres of the Khmer Rouge, a story that formed the basis of her 2004 play Eyes of the Heart. She worked with survivors of the Cambodian genocide, developing the oral history project A Circle of Grace with the Cambodian Women's Group at St. Rita's Centre for Immigration and Refugee Services in the Bronx, New York.
Her 2005 play Lemkin's House is based on the life of Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jew and American immigrant lawyer who invented the word genocide in 1944 and spent his life striving to have it recognized as an international crime.
In her 2010 play, Dog and Wolf, a U.S. asylum lawyer seeks to win asylum for Jasmina, a Bosnian refugee. Filloux says of her play, "[It] is written in the staggered poetry of the effort to connect and articulate," grappling with themes of identity, law, sexuality, and family.
Filloux states "For a while, these crimes were the 'best-kept secrets,' but they're not even secrets. They happen all the time, and nobody cares. And that's the problem on some level with doing this kind of theater. There's just a little wall that's been built up against these things, and to write theater about them is part of the challenge."
Throughout her career, Filloux has constantly sought new ways to tell stories and engage audiences such as with opera. In 2022, Filloux participated in a talk with Keturah Stickann as part of Words First: Talking Text in Opera. During the conversation, titled “Catherine Filloux and Writing Social Justice,” Filloux discussed the artistic process, particularly in the realm of opera and her work on the libretto of Orlando with Olga Neuwirth, describing the "sublime" aspect of seeing the music of an opera carry the words of a text.
In a 2008 interview in The Brooklyn Rail, Filloux stated: "For twenty years I have written about Cambodia, P.T.S.D., genocide and trauma. People have exposed their pain to me. I have tried to understand how such violence can occur, how people can so bravely survive, and I felt the raw need to be honest about myself. ... To hold two opposing things in your hands at the same time and to balance them: I'm in that passage, trying to be Here and There. Last time I went to Cambodia, I felt for the first time I could be in two places at the same time, and not compare. That came from writing this play Killing the Boss."
The Guardian Orlando world premiere review, Classical music, Fiona Maddocks, “a feast for ears and eyes, Four stars…the first full-length, main-stage work by a woman in the Vienna State Opera’s 150-year history – which had its world premiere last weekend…a solid 10 minutes of cheering at the end…The composer and her librettist, the French-American writer Catherine Filloux, have added their own appendix to Woolf.” [Orlando is the winner of the 2022 Grawemeyer Award.]
Immigrant Report, Matt Barbot, Being from Elsewhere “Catherine Filloux’s plays are more than just stories, they’re catalysts; they aim to send you forth from the theater not just satisfied and thinking but to make change in the world. She tackles the underpinnings of the Civil Rights movement, prison reform, the Khmer Rouge, even the mental health of Mary Todd Lincoln. Her latest piece, turning your body into a compass…was an experiment in form: not just a live performance, but a livestream created in collaboration with Culturehub, a blending of mediums that will reach an even wider audience than might typically be possible with a play. It’s an exciting opportunity for a playwright who strives, above all, to connect.”
StageBuddy Review, Navida Stein “Not only is Ms. Filloux’s play gut-wrenching theater, it is also rooted in several years of research…all under the umbrella of compelling storytelling…Ms. Filloux’s anguished and at times poetic dialogue flows effortlessly in Ms. Strum’s interpretation…whatdoesfreemean? is at times uncomfortable viewing and Ms. Filloux is to be commended for stunningly weaving together unsparing scenes and theatrically fantastical elements with Mary’s straightforward story. The play educates us about women’s incarceration never veering into sentimentality or a movie of the week mentality. Through the beautiful, multi-facted character of Mary, Ms. Filloux’s whatdoesfreemean? offers a road map to finding freedom and hope even in the most despairing of circumstances.”
Onstage Blog Review, Tara Kennedy, “whatdoesfreemean? Nora’s Playhouse “With the pizazz of NYC’s high-end shows, audiences are dazzled into forgetting the quality of the script. With the black box presentation of whatdoesfreemean? one only has the actors and the words to focus on…Ms. Filloux’s text does a wonderful job of creating a fully-developed, likable, flawed character that the audience cares about… a woman in the audience spoke up about being a former inmate and how the play felt much like her experience ‘on the inside;’ at times, the play was difficult for her to watch. And it’s this woman’s reaction that is confirmation of the faithfulness of Ms. Filloux’s play to the experience of prison. But don’t take our word for it: come downtown and experience.”
TheaterScene Off-Broadway Review, Darryl Reilly, The heartbreaking saga of an African-American woman incarcerated for drug dealing is theatrically told through flashbacks, fantasy interludes and realism. “Documentary detail is blended with theatricality in playwright Catherine Filloux’s heartbreaking drama whatdoesfreemean? Ms. Filloux combines the unraveling Mary’s redemptive journey with the suspense of whether she can mentally keep it together in order to obtain an early release…a searing and poignant narrative containing absurdist flourishes that include a talking laboratory mouse. The play is structured as a series of short pungent scenes. Filloux’s dialogue poetically conveys the harsh realities the underprivileged face.”
Exeunt NYC Off-Broadway Review, Ran Xia, whatdoesfreemean? at The Tank “The piece beautifully dissects a complex character whose criminality and morality should not be viewed as simply black and white and puts the effectiveness, as well as the inhumanity of our prison system under scrutiny…A contrast to the dark subject matter and graphic depiction of prison violence is a particularly brilliant and comedic scene where Mary converses with a mouse…Filloux’s play illuminates a crucial social issue. This is the second play I’ve seen in the past year or so by the human rights playwright about a woman in captivity, the previous one being Kidnap Road at La Mama. A woman lying in a cage has become a haunting, recurring image that I now associate with Filloux…Filloux’s play opens another window to a large-scale issue that deserves more attention.”
Theatre Is Easy, Ran Xia, Kidnap Road “Catherine Filloux’s emotionally and psychologically charged play…offers a poignant anatomy of Betancourt’s psyche as a woman, a politician, and a victim of different ideologies in the crossfire. But more importantly, this shocking story holds a mirror up to how female politicians are treated in the U.S. as well.”
Exeunt Magazine, Molly Grogan “…Kidnap Road while satisfying enough as a theater object in the existential two-hander genre, takes us into disorienting territory.”
Show-Score, Kidnap Road “Intelligent, Intense, Edgy, Dizzying, Thought-provoking, Relevant, Great Staging. This is poetic and fluid in its approach to storytelling, often imaginative, beautiful yet jarring."
Sin Censura, Teatro, Hector Luis, Kidnap Road “With exquisite poetry, Filloux covers Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt's six years of captivity at the hands of the FARC…a phenomenal night of theater. One of very few instances where story, direction and acting are so well fused and synchronized it is impossible for the audience to ever feel disconnected.” (English Translation)
Times Square Chronicles, Virginia Jimenez, Kidnap Road “Every moment gives insight to her life and her torture.”
StageBuddy, Navida Stein “With poetic dialogue and powerful imagery, playwright Catherine Filloux in her new play Selma ‘65 has written a beautiful solo vehicle for actress Marietta Hedges. Showing us small ordinary details of these two people’s lives, Ms. Filloux paints intimate portraits that reveal fragile psyches and a deep desire to be a part of something greater. Ms. Filloux’s characters converse with family members and one of the most touching scenes is Tommy Rowe attempting to connect with his daughter. Mr. Rowe’s interactions at the Senate hearings after the murder are riveting as the government struggles to spin the story to their advantage.”
Urban excavations, Martha Wade Steketee, LUZ “The theatrical world created by Catherine Filloux’s Luz is bounded by legal papers and files addressing citizenship and deportation and immigration, and by supertitles that illuminate Spanish language dialogue as necessary to tell the stories of several women. In this world Luz (Julissa Roman) and Helene (Lynnette R. Freeman) and Zia (Kim Brockington) work with their legal advocate Alexandra (Kimber Riddle), support each other, and build a potent world of poetry, power, pain, and resolution.”
East Village Arts, Shane Reader, LUZ “The design components are spot-on, and the woven narrative of the many characters tackles a multitude of issues from even more angles. In this way, the theatrical medium was a perfect choice for the call to action that is LUZ.”
Broadway World Reviews: HGO’s NEW ARRIVALS, A Touching and Inspiring Opera, David Clarke “Catherine Filloux’s libretto is exceptionally well written. It effortlessly relates Yani Rose Keo’s story to the audience, delving into the emotional and psychological torment of adversity upon the soul as exemplified by the characterization of Yani Rose Keo and the three refugees she helps during the opera. Catherine Filloux adeptly employs thematic devices to explore the human desire and need to help others, ultimately furthering humanity and leaving the audience with a craving to give back to any person or community in need.”
New York Times, ANITA GATES, ‘DOG AND WOLF’ "Wisecracking, entertainingly playful!"
TheaterMania, PATRICK LEE, ‘DOG AND WOLF’ "A story of political intrigue"
Theatre Is Easy, AARON BLANK, ‘DOG AND WOLF’ “A compelling, unconventional and unique love story…Catherine Filloux's writing is comical at first, then delves darker into our fears and what drives us to follow our passions, as well as how we protect ourselves…”
New York Times, CARYN JAMES, ‘KILLING THE BOSS’ “Ms. Filloux’s strong sense of theater and comedy are apparent…the work’s affecting quality, which sneaks up on you in this subtle production (directed by Jean Randich), is nothing to dismiss…”
Variety By SAM THIELMAN, ‘KILLING THE BOSS’ “Attains an odd kind of universality…the play makes you feel like the Boss is just next door—It helps that Filloux has written dialogue that strikes a balance between earnestness and wit, with frank declarations occasionally – enjoyably – wrong-footed by somber jokes…“Killing the Boss” achieves something odd and slightly unreal with its detailed schedule of events and dreamlike rewirings…”
BBC WORLD NEWS “Where Elephants Weep”
“The Cambodian stage hasn’t seen anything like this for decades. A rock opera that wouldn’t look out of place in London’s West End or New York’s Broadway. Audiences have been lapping it up. It could mark the rebirth of Cambodian theatre. Spare seats have been hard to come by, sold out in double quick time. A long awaited feast.” Guy DeLauney, “Where Elephants Weep,” BBC World News Accessible at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P23Q_KC90A&fmt=18.
CNN “Where Elephants Weep”
“The production presents Cambodia in the light that it so urgently needs to be shown in…”
‘LEMKIN’S HOUSE’, highly recommended by The New York Times, The Listings
“The man who invented the word genocide, Raphael Lemkin, turns out to have an unsettled afterlife in the compelling drama by Catherine Filloux. He learns, through visitations by Tutsis and others, that the international law he campaigned for against genocide may not have accomplished anything…A call to action…” (Genzlinger).
VILLAGE VOICE “Genocide He Wrote” By Alexis Soloski - ‘Lemkin’s House’
“Catherine Filloux, who has written four plays about the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, researched her play impeccably but lent her play a dreamlike tone that offsets any dryness or didacticism…this play should haunt, and possibly inspire, much of the audience as well.”
VILLAGE VOICE “The Beauty Inside” “This moving character study pits East against West, tradition against progress, and ambition against conscience, in a drama whose lyrical dialogue evokes the surprising ambivalence of this wrenching battle.” LAWLER
The L Magazine Theater Review by Douglas Singleton “It’s a relief to see such economical storytelling — a kind of anti-Homebody/Kabul where characters say what they mean and action occurs at a lively pace. Only five actors grace the stage though it seems a dozen do — the characters are rich and cleanly drawn…The Beauty Inside joins a string of exceptional pieces performed at the 45 Below Culture Project space…These are not run-of-the mill productions, but theater with purpose.”
nytheatre.com review Review by Loren Noveck – “The Beauty Inside” “What makes the relationship--and the play--work is that Filloux resists the temptation to portray the issues in black and white…Filloux also never forgets the personal cost of trying to change the world; both Yalova and Devrim take huge risks…and Filloux doesn’t try to make one more valuable or relevant than the other.”
New York Times Theater Review | 'Eyes of the Heart': Surviving the Khmer Rouge
By ANITA GATES “Thida is the heroine of Catherine Filloux's ‘Eyes of the Heart,’ a beautifully done one-act drama about the place where horror and grief meet…The strange thing (or maybe it's not strange at all) is that the audience's tears come when another character, an American, talks about her husband's death from a nervous-system disease, not when Thida describes a far more gruesome loss. Somehow one tragedy helps communicate the depth of the other.”
A CurtainUp Review by Jenny Sandman “Eyes of the Heart is a spare, intimate drama about the havoc wreaked by the Khmer Rouge…It makes for a finely balanced play, without maudlin appeals for pity, vengeance or help… Eyes of the Heart is an informative and an at once heartbreaking and heartwarming evening.”
The Washington Times, T.L. Ponick - “SILENCE OF GOD… is a brave attempt to come to grips with the Cambodian holocaust, something that has largely failed to penetrate the American consciousness…SILENCE OF GOD is a brave play, with a compelling story to tell.”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Christopher Rawson – “Silence of God” - “Over everything hangs the Cambodian tragedy and America’s complicity or inaction. That Pol Pot proves so banal in person accentuates the mystery of evil.”
The Morgan Messenger by Grace Cavalieri – “Silence of God” - “The single female author in the group, Catherine Filloux, is a returning festival playwright. SILENCE OF GOD is a fictional account of Cambodia, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, imagined through the eyes of a journalist at the end of the Pol Pot leadership. The lighting and set initially establish a reverence and awe for the material of a history too rude to be imagined. The play is ultimately about prayer and death, with a momentary flare of love at its center…One of the lines in the play speaks about “putting the spirit down on paper” and much of the play’s symbolism revolves around this significant act. It is the way human beings make an indentation in the universe. Filloux does this.”
Opera News, Recordings Critic’s Choice “The Floating Box: A Story in Chinatown” “Catherine Filloux’s libretto, based on more than forty hours of oral histories she and Hwang recorded in New York City’s Chinatown, is vivid and concisely poetic.”
International Record Review (London) The Floating Box. (New World Records) “Between them Jason Kao Hwang and Catherine Filloux have addressed the problem of combining Chinese and Western styles with astonishing success here…Indeed [Filloux’s] portrayal of Chinese immigrants attempting to establish themselves in a strange land while unable to divest themselves of their own culture is in itself both compelling and totally convincing.”
Flash Review Dispatch by Maura Nguyen Donohue - "Photographs From S-21, by French-American playwright Catherine Filloux subtly challenges the audience to question its own role as consumers, and curators, of tragedy."
Curtain Up by Dolores Whiskeyman – “Mary and Myra” "She renders Mary Todd a creature of contradiction, at once petulant and impossible, demanding and clear-eyed, unable to contain the sharp tongue that so offends her thin-skinned eldest child. Myra Bradwell is equally complex."
VILLAGE VOICE – “Price of Madness is my kind of play. Should be yours too if you ever ponder the nature of art vis-á-vis mediocrity, sanity vs. insanity, or how commercialism can kill inspiration...A lot goes on in this layered, lyrical piece...The dialogue crackles with ideas..."
Baltimore Sun – “All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go” "Takes place roughly where 'Witness' meets 'La Cage aux Folles'...and instead of making us laugh at them, makes us respect the humanity they have in common."
National Public Radio, WBFO - “Venus in the Birdbath” "Not to be missed. It's sharp, intimate and extremely witty. The characters are rich and fully developed...This is one of those rare comedies that will actually make you laugh."
Works
Plays (selected productions)
"How to Eat an Orange" is a world premiere play by Filloux produced at La MaMa Theatre, New York City, Spring 2024 about Argentinian visual artist/activist Claudia Bernardi surviving under Argentina's military junta; her artwork excavating genocide; and fighting for international justice. With community outreach programming. (Commissioned by INTAR, for a virtual workshop.)
'White Savior' her new play, is nominated for The Venturous Play List.
Catherine’s new musical “Welcome to the Big Dipper” (composer Jimmy Roberts, “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change”) premieres Off-Broadway in 2024 at the York Theatre in New York City; it is a National Alliance for Musical Theatre finalist and received a workshop at the Redhouse Arts Center in Syracuse, NY (Hunter Foster, AD).
turning your body into a compass
2019 A Live Stream Web Story, Culture Hub and Chaotic Sequence Productions; Directed by Daria Sommers; Produced by Daria Sommers and Arthur Vincie; Theatre Director DeMone Seraphin; Livestreaming and video production by CultureHub, New York, NY
whatdoesfreemean
2018 Premiere, Nora's Playhouse, (New York, NY)
2016 Readings at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and College and Community Fellowship, (New York, NY)
Kidnap Road
2017 Premiere at La MaMa, 55th Season, (New York, NY)
2016 Presented by Anna Deavere Smith, NYU's Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue, (New York, NY)
2015 Presented by Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice (IPJ) & School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego, The Art of Peace symposium
2015 Headline for Planet Connections Staged Reading Series, Paradise Factory, New York, NY
Selma '65
2014-2015 premiere at La Mama 53rd season, (commissioned by Marietta Hedges), New York, NY; US tour to venues around the US
Mock Court (Play Commission)
2014 Book Wings Iraq, a collaborative bilingual theatre initiative produced in partnership with The University of Iowa's International Writing Program and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Iowa City, Iowa, and Baghdad, Iraq.
Luz
2012 La MaMa, 51st Season, New York, New York
Dog and Wolf
2010 59E59 Theaters, New York, New York
(Developed at The Playwrights' Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota& New York Theatre Workshop, New York, New York)
2010 Dog and Wolf Community Outreach Project (Watson Arts): Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens, New York
Killing the Boss
2008 Cherry Lane Theatre, New York, New York
Lemkin's House
2007 Season, Rideau de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
2006 McGinn-Cazale Theatre, New York, New York; Producers: Vital Theatre Co. & Body Politic Theater
2006 Season, 78th Street Theatre Lab, New York, New York
2005 Season, Kamerni Teatar 55, Sarajevo, Bosnia; & Roxy Art House, Edinburgh, Scotland
2005 U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, (Reading co-sponsored by Theater J)
The Breach (with Tarell McCraney and Joe Sutton)
2008 Season, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle, Washington
2007 Season, Southern Rep, New Orleans, Louisiana (Premiere/Commission)
The Beauty Inside
2005 Season, New Georges, New York, New York (co-produced with InterAct Theatre Co., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Eyes of the Heart
2004 Season, National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO), New York, New York
2002 25th Bay Area Playwrights Festival, San Francisco, California
Escuela del Mundo
2006/2005 Seasons, The Ohio State University Theatre Department, Columbus, Ohio, with the Office of International Affairs; Toured high schools in Ohio (Premiere/Commission)
Silence of God
2002 Season, Contemporary American Theater Festival, Shepherdstown, West Virginia (Premiere/Commission)
Mary and Myra
2002 Season, Todd Mountain Theater Project, Roxbury, New York
2000 Season, Contemporary American Theater Festival, Shepherdstown, West Virginia
(Videorecording of CATF Production in New York Public Library for Performing Arts, Lincoln Center)
Arthur's War
2002 Theatreworks/USA, New York, New York (commission) (Music by Jenny Giering)
Price of Madness
1996 Season, Emerging Artists Theatre Company, INTAR, New York, New York
All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go
Ongoing development for musical with composer Jimmy Roberts (I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change) and John Daggett
2009 Lyman Center for the Performing Arts, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, Connecticut
1994 Season, Playwrights Theatre of Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland
Venus in the Birdbath
1990 Season, Alleyway Theatre, Buffalo, New York
Cut To: The Deal
2002 Season, Theatre XX, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
1988 Season, Brooklyn Playworks, Brooklyn, New York
Three Continents
1998 InterAct Theatre Co., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Reading)
1997 New Georges, New York, New York (Reading)
Photos from S-21 (A Short Play)
Produced in the U.S. and around the world, including Cambodia (in Khmer), Singapore, Thailand, India, Denmark, England and France.
BPV, Passion.com, Marriage À Trois, The G Word, Lessons Of My Father, Storks, The Sun Always Rose, The Russian Doll, White Trash, Visiting Hours
These short plays were produced at Play2C Studio Berlin, Germany; HB Playwrights Theatre, New York, New York; Immigrants' Theatre Project/Women Without Borders, New York, New York; New Georges, "Watch This Space: A New Georges Anthology", HERE, New York, New York; Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab & Culture Project's "Brothers Karamazov", New York, New York; Women's Project, New York, New York; Yale Cabaret, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; University of California, San Diego Theatre Festival, San Diego, California
Opera Libretti (selected productions)
Orlando
2022 Grawemeyer Award; 2019 Season Premiere, commissioned by the Weiner Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera), Vienna, Austria, Composer Olga Neuwirth (Co-Librettist)
New Arrivals
2012 Season, Houston Grand Opera, Song of Houston: East + West, Houston, Texas, Composer John Glover (Premiere/Commission)
(Librettist)
Where Elephants Weep
2008 Chenla Theater, Phnom Penh, Cambodia and CTN TV Broadcast, Composer Him Sophy (Commissioned by Cambodian Living Arts)
(Librettist)
The Floating Box: A Story in Chinatown
2001 Season, Asia Society, New York, New York, Composer Jason Kao Hwang (Premiere/Commission); New World Records CD Release (Aaron Copland Fund) (Librettist)
Currently in development
Opera Libretti
2021-20 Thresh's L'Orient, a multidisciplinary production co-created with choreographer Preeti Vasudevan and composer Kamala Sankaram, 2021 Guggenheim Works & Process, Lincoln Center, New York, NY, (Librettist)
2021-20 Mary Shelley, a new chamber opera, music by Gerald Cohen, dramaturg, Cori Ellison, Black Tea Music (Librettist)
Musical (Co-Bookwriter)
Welcome to the Big Dipper with Composer Jimmy Roberts (I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change) and Bookwriter/ Additional Lyrics John Daggett (Lemkin's House), based on Filloux's play
2019 Workshop, Redhouse Arts Center, Syracuse, NY, (Artistic Director, Hunter Foster); 2018 NAMT Finalist, New York, NY
Screenplays
2000 Play Eyes of the Heart: Developed for Lifetime Television
1999 Priscilla's Story: Screenplay treatment, Malvina Douglas Productions, New York, New York
1990 Alter Ego: Based on the novel, Vestments, by Alfred Alcorn
1988 Prodigal Son: Optioned by Justine Bateman, Bateman Co., Los Angeles, California
Selected publications
WHITE SAVIOR, Lamedman, Debbie, Editor. The Best Women's Monologues, 2021. Smith and Kraus,
Inc, 2021.
whatdoesfreemean, Stewart, Frank, Editor. Tyranny Lessons: International Prose, Poetry,
Essays, and Performance. Manoa, 2020.
-TURNING YOUR BODY INTO A COMPASS, Stewart, Frank, Bhalla, Alok, Di Ming, Editors. Displaced
Lives: Fiction, Poetry, Memoirs, and Plays from Four Continents. Manoa, 2019.
Kidnap Road, Harbison, Lawrence, Editor. The Best Women's Stage Monologues of 2018. Smith
and Kraus, Inc, 2018.
Eyes of the Heart, six selected plays by Catherine Filloux, Stewart, Frank, Editor. Manoa 29:1
(2017.)
Selma '65, Playscripts, Inc., 2016.
The Beauty Inside Lane, Eric and Nina Shengold, Editors. Plays for Three. New York: Vintage
Books, 2015.
Luz, by Catherine Filloux, with an introduction by José Zayas, “Dreaming the Americas Series,” NoPassport
Press, 2014.
Dog and Wolf & Killing the Boss, two plays by Catherine Filloux, with an introduction by Cynthia E.
Cohen (Brandeis University), “Dreaming the Americas Series,” NoPassport Press, 2011.
Dog and Wolf, Stewart, Frank, and Fiona Sze-Lorrain, Editors. On Freedom: Spirit, Art, and State.
Manoa 24:2 (winter 2012.)
THE BREACH by Filloux/McCraney/Sutton, Trauth, Suzanne M., Brenner, Lisa, Editors, Katrina
On Stage, Northwestern University Press, 2011.
SILENCE OF GOD AND OTHER PLAYS BY CATHERINE FILLOUX – Martin, Carol, Series
Editor of “In Performance,” London, New York, Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2009.
Lemkin's House – Playscripts, Inc., 2007.
Eyes of the Heart:
Playscripts, Inc., 2007.
Martin, Carol and Saviana Stanescu, Editors. Global Foreigners: An Anthology of Plays. London, New
York, Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2006.
Stewart, Frank and Barry Lopez, Editors. Maps of Reconciliation: Literature and the Ethical
Imagination. Manoa, 2007.
Silence of God: Skloot, Robert, Editor. The Theatre of Genocide: Four Plays About Mass Murder
in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, and Armenia. The University of Wisconsin Press, 2008.
Mary and Myra- Playscripts, Inc., 2005.
ALL DRESSED UP AND NOWHERE TO GO – Playscripts, Inc., 2004.
VENUS IN THE BIRDBATH – Playscripts, Inc., 2004.
PRICE OF MADNESS – Playscripts, Inc., 2003.
Photos from S-21:
Great Short Plays: Volume 4. Playscripts, Inc., 2007.
Lane, Eric and Nina Shengold, Editors. Under Thirty: Plays for a New Generation. New York: Vintage
Books, 2004.
Carden, William, Editor. HB Playwrights Short Play Festival 1998 The Museum Plays. Smith and
Kraus, Inc, 2002.
SEVEN, Dramatists Play Service Inc., 2009 (Filloux et al.)
PODCAST GUEST FOR ART/ACTIVISM:
Art Heals All Wounds Pam Uzzell
https://pod.link/1550209619/episode/d85ad471e16b32fd48b63f5814a181c2
Arts Calling.com
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/101-catherine-filloux-where-elephants-weep-and/id1578184059?i=1000608572164
Death in Cambodia, Life in America
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/catherine-filloux-award-winning-playwright-of-the/id1572383588?i=1000609132887
Women Who Dare Episode 8
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mediawise/episodes/Episode-8---The-Playwright-Changemaker---Catherine-Filloux-e23u94r
EO 360°, top podcast made by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs, Host Dave Will
https://entrepreneursorg.libsyn.com/cat-filloux
First Online With Fran
https://firstonlinewithfran.com/2023/09/18/catherine-filloux-shaped-by-change/
The Unpredictable with Host Onder Deligoz
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0PqCSmZVnM3ZKUFVpd7XEk?si=UfL6QuB-Sae3N33qU2w4JA&nd=1
Steve Cuden StoryBeat
https://www.storybeat.net/
References
External links
Catherine Filloux's website
Interview with Voices on Genocide Prevention
Catherine Filloux – Theatre, Memory, and Grappling with Complicity
BBC World News – Where Elephants Weep
The Catherine Filloux Collection includes play scripts, programs and other accompanying ephemera is held by the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, The Ohio State University Libraries.
American people of French descent
Tisch School of the Arts alumni
Living people
21st-century American dramatists and playwrights
Year of birth missing (living people)